


Under the Sun

by ohmytheon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1766809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmytheon/pseuds/ohmytheon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life sure is different in Dorne for Catelyn now that she's been married to Oberyn Martell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Sun

She thought that it got hot at Riverrun in the middle of those summer years, but those days were nothing compared to what Dorne was like during summer. Truth be told, Catelyn felt as if she did not belong in Dorne, not with her unusual flaming red hair and pale complexion. She burned too easily, had to wrap herself up in thin material and shield her face and most of her skin. It was like she had to hide from everything in Dorne.

But oh, how Oberyn enjoyed unraveling her.

As a child, she had been told stories of Dorne and she would in turn retell those stories to Lysa and Edmure, always making sure to make Dorne sound like some mystical and magical place. Indeed, even though she may have embellished her stories slightly, Catelyn had been enamored with the place. It was mystical to her, a foreign land with foreign people and foreign concepts. As she did her duties in Riverrun, duties that would have fallen to her mother had the woman been alive, she thought of how after all she did, Riverrun would pass to her little brother once their father died. Had they been in Dorne, Riverrun would’ve been hers by rights since she was the firstborn. Her sex didn’t matter. They didn’t have a king or queen, but princes and princesses. There was sand and seas instead of rivers and mud banks. What kind of creatures lived in those oceans? Surely they had more than trout.

When she had first arrived in Dorne a few years ago, Catelyn had not been disappointed. The landscape had taken her breath away, varying from high mountains to sandy desserts to water so clear that it stunned her. The water surrounding Riverrun and in the Riverlands was so very blue and also murky in many parts because of the rain and the dirt. The water in Dorne though, whether at a little oasis or in the water gardens in Sunspear, was so beautiful and clear that she could always see her feet at the bottom.

The hot sun was almost unbearable at times though. Many days, Catelyn would be desperate to venture outside and just walk around, but the moment she did so, she would become almost dizzy under the brutal gaze of the sun. Summer was in its peak and it would be long before winter came. Who knew if it actually got cold during the winter here or if it just became more tolerable to outsiders like her?

Today was one of those days. Catelyn stood at the large glass doors that led out to a patio and gazed at the beauty outside. A plate with figs and other exotic fruit sat untouched on the table, the breakfast that a handmaiden had brought in a while ago. The food was another thing that she loved here. It had been difficult to get used to at first, so rich and filled with many unusual spices, but now whenever she visited home, the food tasted so bland and banal in comparison. Even so, she found little desire to eat when all she could think about was going outside and adventuring. She’d reigned in that wild desire as she had grown older, being the proper lady of Riverrun that she was supposed to be, but Oberyn had stirred something inside of her and helped her embrace that desire again.

Hands suddenly swept over her body, caressing her side and then her stomach over the thin material of her dress. Though it was abrupt, she was not startled. She could tell who it was just by the roughness of his hands and the heat of his touch, and she leaned back against him.

“You wish to go outside, do you not?” Oberyn murmured into her ear. His breath blew on her hair and tickled her.

Catelyn nodded her head, closing her eyes and picturing herself outside, running around, free. Oberyn’s skin did not burn in the sun like hers. She’d watched him practicing with his spear outside, shirt off, sweat glistening on his chest. He was made to be outside and to be free.

“I have an idea,” he told her.

When she turned to look back at him questioningly, he kissed her passionately in response and then quickly left the room, making her feel slightly dizzy and confused. A few minutes later, two handmaidens appeared, carrying with them more thin material. They carefully wrapped her, the cool material lying delicately over her arms and over the dress she was wearing. They made sure to put the wrap over her head and her neck, so that she could pull the material up like a scarf to shield most of her face. The women led her through the halls and outside where Oberyn was waiting outside with only two horses. Unlike in the rest of Westeros, where she could not seem to go anywhere without some sort of guard, she traveled often with simply Oberyn at her side. As he said, if he could not defend her and himself, then no one could; and she trusted him in that respect.

Catelyn smiled from underneath her scarf; and though he could not see it, he saw the smile in her eyes. He knew how much she loved riding, something she had done plenty of in Riverrun, but got to do more often and with more freedom here in Dorne. “Where are we going?” she asked him after mounting her horse, a beautiful dark mare.

“A surprise,” was all he said in response.

She immediately felt her heart begin to race at his words and simply nodded her head. Oberyn pulled himself onto his horse and set off quickly, Catelyn following him without hesitation. They very rarely rode slowly. Oberyn loved the thrill of riding fast and hard and Catelyn found herself enjoying the chase. Sometimes, they would race. He almost always won, but she had found a few tricks over the years that had enabled her to win every now and then. It took everything in him to not take her right there out in the open whenever she won. This time, however, she would simply follow on his heels and allow him to lead the way since she didn’t know where they were going.

They rode mostly in silence, but Catelyn didn’t mind that. She enjoyed the sound of the horses hooves clapping on the ground, their heavy breathing and their human counterparts’ mixing in the air, and the sound of the outdoors. The handmaidens had made sure to wrap her in a way that she would not come undone and have a wave of material trailing behind her. She was always amazed how they could do her up so gently and allow the cloth to be loose on her and yet not have it come undone the moment she went outside. And yet Oberyn always knew how to undo her in one pull.

Finally, they began to slow down and when Catelyn moved her horse to his horse’s right, she let out a gasp.

They were at a secluded part of the sea with a beach. The sand was so white that she’d nearly mistaken it for snow at first. To the right on the beach was a small hill where a few trees hung over part of the sea. They slowly made their way over there. Oberyn got off his horse first and then helped her down. He never tied their horses up, allowing them to wander the beach and rest at their own leisure. She couldn’t imagine doing that to the horses they’d kept in the Riverrun stables.

“It’s so…” Catelyn couldn’t think of anything to describe it. The place was beautiful, remarkable, magnificent, but it was more than that. She loved swimming more than riding, more than most anything. Her Uncle Brynden had said that she was a trout in human form when she’d been a child. The sea had caught her off guard at first, being so strong and powerful and wild, but she’d grown to love it as deeply as the rivers in the Riverlands that she’d swam in.

Oberyn said nothing. He pulled her into the shaded area and began to carefully unravel her. He did it slowly, pressing kisses onto her skin the moment it came out of hiding, until the material the handmaidens had put on her was completely off her and put to the side. Then he began to work on her dress, sliding the material from her shoulders.

Catelyn caught his hand immediately, blush rising to her cheeks. “Oberyn…”

“You need not worry,” he said, kissing her again. “We are alone. And besides, even if we were not, I would revel in your beauty before everyone so that they would be jealous.” He kissed down her neck and her collarbone, causing her whole body to tingle. There were times when she felt so out of place in Dorne because of her looks. She’d come to find that the women were so beautiful and lovely that she felt plain and unusual at times. But he said that her hair was the color of fire and therefore the color of Dorne and made her felt good. “It is just us.”

“And the horses,” Catelyn added, a little smile on her face, though she was still blushing.

“It’s a good thing horses don’t go around talking then,” Oberyn pointed out. She let out a laugh and then nodded her head. He continued to work on her dress, until it fell down and pooled around her feet. She carefully stepped out of it, trying to be mindful not to cover herself up, though she felt the powerful desire to do so. This was the opposite of hiding, as she always did here. Oberyn soon followed suit, quickly stripping of his clothes, and then took her hand, leading her down to the water.

The water was cool as it rushed over her feet, but felt relieving after the heat of the sand. Immediately, she felt a rush and she pushed further into the water, until she was in as deep as her chest. She lifted her feet and floated in the waves. Oberyn came up from behind and kissed her behind her ear before darting away from her, causing her to laugh and give chase. It was like being a child again and not at the same time. She could never swim like this as a child, but here she had such freedom. It was strange and frightening and amazing at the same time.

They swam for what felt like hours, floating around, kissing lazily here and there, finding shells and getting tangled in seaweed. Her hair glowed in the sun and her cheeks became rosy, but she didn’t care. Near the end of their time, as the sun was beginning its decent, she swam over to Oberyn and kissed him boldly, feeling drunk off the sea and the heat. He touched her under the water, sliding his hands on her skin as the waves gently pushed against her. When he slipped a finger inside of her, she was caught off guard and grasped him, but he kept at it, seemingly in time with the waves. It was so very much unlike her, but she told herself not to hold back. When she came, it was as wild and sudden as the sea during a storm.

It took one look in his eyes for him to slid his hands under her bottom and scoop her up out of the water. He carried her to their clothes under the trees on the beach and laid her down and took her right then and there. She’d never had sex out in the open like this, but found that she didn’t mind so much. They made love in a frenzy on top of their clothing, him on top of her, one hand roaming her body as the other tangled in her hair. After he came, he kissed her one more time and then rolled off of her.

As they lay next to each other, breathing erratically, Catelyn bit her lip and then said, “This was a brilliant idea. We should do this more often.”

This time, Oberyn laughed. “Only if you insist, my lady.”


End file.
